


nothing good happens after 2 am (except when it does)

by chatsdelune (greymooses)



Series: 30 days of svt [16]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: 30 Days of Writing, Alternate Universe - Convenience Store, Bickering, Fluff, Getting Together, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Minor Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Hong Jisoo | Joshua, how many times will i write literal sleeping together fic idk, i'm so alone haha, jihoon has an energy drink problem, minwon seoksoon verkwan if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27131137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greymooses/pseuds/chatsdelune
Summary: "i hate you.""you've wounded me, jihoon-ssi. i'm at critical health. not sure how i'll make it through the rest of the night.""drink a red bull."
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua & Yoon Jeonghan, Lee Jihoon | Woozi/Yoon Jeonghan
Series: 30 days of svt [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949296
Comments: 9
Kudos: 130





	nothing good happens after 2 am (except when it does)

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even want to talk about how awful this was to write. i apologize in advance for weirdness (posting on my phone) and the kind of lazy ending (semicolon + life have fucked me up).
> 
> prompt + that bit of one of the ttt things where jihoon flops onto jeonghan's lap is to thank for this mess: i’m a quiktrip worker and whenever I work a night shift you always arrive and buy like 3 cans of redbull and you look exhausted do you need some help? are you okay?

there's a guy.

he comes into jeonghan's store almost every night, at three am, and buys entirely too much red bull.

it's been like two weeks.

at least the repartee is entertaining, even if jeonghan is legitimately concerned for the guy's health.

"red bull-ssi," he whines, "your heart is literally going to explode if you keep doing this, and then i won't get to see you anymore."

"songs don't write them themselves," he mutters, putting four cans down on the counter next to jeonghan's register.

he's clearly already done with jeonghan's shit for the night, but that's never stopped him before. and he still interacts, so he can't be _that_ done.

"don't you have friends to tell you this is bad for you?"

the guy sighs. "sure, but i'm tired and cranky all the time and they have a sense of self-preservation."

"my mom always said i lacked one of those."

he smirks. "smart woman."

jeonghan is a little bit gay — or a lot bit gay, he's never really analyzed it — and the guy is a little bit… interesting. always dressed in a t-shirt that almost covers his shorts, slides, and a baseball cap pulled low. it blocks most of his face when he comes into the store, head down until he sees the place is empty.

it's fucking three am. it's almost always empty. one other person, at most.

jeonghan rings him up, asks, "can i at least have your name to give to the paramedics if you collapse here?" while he's putting the cans in a bag. he holds it hostage on his side of the counter.

the guy stares at him for a second, like he's deciding whether to lunge for the bag — jeonghan would be surprised if he could — before muttering, "jihoon."

jeonghan smiles and hands it over, sing-songs "have a good night" in his sweetest voice as the guy leaves.

jihoon scoffs and flips him off on his way out the door. jeonghan just laughs and goes back to his movie.

***

"we have to stop meeting like this," jeonghan calls back to the beverage case after his other customer leaves.

"trust me, if my studio wasn't in the building next door, we wouldn't."

"ah, the king of sleep deprivation lets more personal details slip."

"i hate you."

"you've wounded me, jihoon-ssi. i'm at critical health. not sure how i'll make it through the rest of the night."

"drink a red bull."

**joshua hong 🐇**

i might be in love

please don't tell cheol

not with you, you fool  
red bull-ssi

i thought all you did was argue

bantering is not arguing  
you should know this better than anyone

you need as much help as he does  
we're having a party on saturday  
you should grace us with your presence

i'll think about it

***

the party is on his night off and he's skipped the last two, so he has little excuse to say no. he loves his friends, but getting them all together in one place can be chaotic, even for him.

it's like they did this on purpose or something.

he can hear the music before he knocks on the door. joshua _grins_ when he opens it and sees jeonghan standing on the other side, so that can't be good. seungcheol comes up behind him and whispers something in his ear that makes him laugh. that _really_ can't be good.

jeonghan squints at them both. they're his best friends, yes, but he trusts them both as far as he can throw them — not very far, because they both have gym addictions.

"come in, come in," joshua chirps, waving his hand. "alcohol in the kitchen as usual. everyone else is in the living room."

"something's up. seungcheol is hiding his face and your volume knob is a notch too high. what did you do?"

joshua's eyes widen. "i'm offended you could think this isn't just a normal party with our friends."

jeonghan rolls his eyes. he still doesn't trust either of them. maybe it's an early birthday party. maybe they're getting a dog and are having a party to announce the end of the parties. maybe it's seungkwan and vernon's five-hundred day anniversary, because they wouldn't hesitate to drag everyone here for that. honestly, the possibilities are endless.

he steps inside anyway — it's not like he has anything better to do on his night off — and gives them both a Look before he heads to the kitchen, where he blatantly ignores the booze laid out on the counter and gets one of seungcheol's expensive beers from the fridge. he's popping the top off with a bottle opener grabbed from a drawer when he hears footsteps. they stop abruptly, and a voice growls seungcheol's name. it sounds a lot like —

"what are you doing here?"

— jihoon.

the first thing jeonghan notices is he has no hat. the second thing is the undercut that has never been obvious with the hat on. the third is that he's not wearing clothes three sizes too big for him.

jeonghan has to consciously remember to keep his mouth shut. as he sees it, he has two ways he could play this: kicking joshua in the shins and going home, or making the most of the situation.

he figures he may as well opt for the second one.

"joshua is my best friend. their gatherings are generally limited to a dozen of us that went to school together. what are _you_ doing here?"

"christ. i work with seungcheol. he begged me to come."

"cheollie doesn't work in that building."

"i never said he did. where did you find beer? i can't drink this other crap."

"fridge, lower right drawer," jeonghan answers, pointing over his shoulder with the bottle. "do you ever sleep?"

"yes."

"did i do something to piss you off in the last sixty seconds?"

"you do something to piss me off every night i go into the store."

"definitely not my intention."

jihoon glares and snatches the bottle opener from him. "i nap more than sleep."

"like a cat."

"sure."

"is that why you're bitchy? missing nap time?"

"nah, your face just annoys me."

jeonghan smirks. "and yet you're still here."

jihoon rolls his eyes and walks out as joshua walks in. he doesn't even have the decency to look ashamed of himself. jeonghan is still considering kicking him in the shins.

"it was seungcheol's idea."

"you _told_ him?"

"it may have come up when you texted me that soliloquy about him in a bucket hat during—"

"nope, no, stop, don't need to think about you like that."

"we've had sex, jeonghan," he scoffs, gesturing between the two of them.

"exactly," jeonghan replies, shuddering.

"he's going to notice you took a beer."

"okay, but so did jihoon."

"yeah. wonder how he found them."

"was rifling around in the fridge like a raccoon in a trash can," jeonghan deadpans. "truly disturbing."

"do you like him or something? seriously."

jeonghan sighs. "i think he's interesting."

"interesting?"

"he keeps up with me as well as you do, even when he's clearly sleep deprived. it's interesting, yes."

joshua stares for a few seconds, fiddles with the straw he was using to mix his drink, then says, "he's been talking to mingyu and wonwoo a bit when they're not doing terrible renditions of snsd songs. he actually knows how to laugh. you might want to try not being an asshole for once."

***

jeonghan tries.

everyone — except jihoon, of course — cheers when he finally walks into the living room. they seem to be between songs, people talking in whatever small groups they've naturally fallen into based on their seat selections. jihoon is tucked into a corner of the sofa, keeping as much space as possible between himself and mingyu, but still talking to him and wonwoo.

like, a lot.

and very animatedly.

huh.

seokmin bounces over to aggressively hug him, which catches mingyu's attention, which catches jihoon's attention, who notices jeonghan staring at him. he immediately wipes all emotion off his face and sticks his tongue out like a child.

to say he's intriguing would be an understatement. it's not that jeonghan particularly enjoys chasing difficult people — if they show zero interest he'll absolutely back off — but that's not quite the case.

he's cute when he's actually smiling. he has _dimples_.

mingyu and wonwoo decide to sing another song.

naturally, jeonghan steals mingyu's seat.

jihoon scoffs. "you really don't give up."

"i don't know what you're talking about. i took a seat that was empty."

mingyu and wonwoo get louder the longer they go on, more dramatic with their dance moves. jeonghan laughs quietly.

"what do you do when you're not badgering me for drinking too much caffeine?" jihoon asks, pulling his attention away from his friends.

"getting over your hatred of my face?"

"nope, still hate it, but you owe me personal details."

jeonghan pulls his legs up onto the sofa, angles himself against the arm, and decides to be candid for once. "finishing my teaching degree."

"you're still in school?"

"took a couple years of biology to realize i didn't want to work in a lab. did my face make you think i do something completely vapid?"

jihoon hums, like he's deciding between two answers. after a moment, he says, "truthfully, yes."

mingyu and wonwoo ramp down their karaoke efforts as the song ends. seokmin and soonyoung take over the microphones, and mingyu and wonwoo take their abandoned seat. jeonghan was kind of counting on them coming back and filling the void between him and jihoon and now that they haven't, he's not sure what to do.

he watches as seokmin and soonyoung flip through the catalog; sees wonwoo squeeze himself into a chair with mingyu, half on his lap; lets his eyes flick to the other end of the sofa and sees jihoon with his head resting against the back, eyes closed.

they pick a ballad, because of course they do. their favorite activity is being melodramatic and nothing says melodrama quite like exaggerated performances of songs about lost love.

jeonghan barely pays attention, because jihoon's entire expression has softened, hair falling over his forehead. it's impressive; anyone that can close their eyes in the middle of this particular group of people deserves some sort of prize. he can't even do it, and he _loves_ sleeping. more than that, though, jeonghan realizes that he _does_ like him. likes the challenge, likes that he's passionate enough to risk a chemical-induced heart attack before thirty, likes that someone other than joshua will call him on his shit.

soonyoung and seokmin get to the bridge of their song and seokmin goes for a high note. jihoon stirs, opening his eyes and immediately rolling them when he sees jeonghan staring at him.

"you could've told me i was boring you," jeonghan quips.

he doesn't reply, just shuffles closer to jeonghan on his knees. "shut up and put your leg down," he mumbles, pushing at jeonghan's thigh.

jeonghan tries to ask why as he lowers his foot to the floor, but it gets caught in his throat when jihoon curls into a tiny ball against him, head in his lap.

"if you say a word right now, i'll tell everyone about the time i caught you dancing in the chip aisle."

jeonghan snorts and rests his hand on jihoon's head instead, scratching softly over the shorter areas of his hair, and lets him sleep.

***

it becomes a regular thing.

jeonghan drops by the studio before his shift, brings a book with him and reads for half an hour with his hand in jihoon's hair, hat on the sofa next to him, while jihoon rests.

he buys two cans at three am, after that.

it's two weeks before jihoon fidgets for five minutes, takes his book away, and kisses him. he curls up again a minute later, ears tinged with red.

it's a day before jeonghan drags him out of the studio at six and brings him home with him to sleep properly.

(two weeks before more kissing happens than resting. three days before jeonghan drops by earlier, so they can do both. a week until jihoon starts leaving clothes at his apartment, starts taking showers there, eats dinner with him.

three more weeks until jihoon sleepily lets slip that he loves him, until jeonghan asks "more or less than red bull?" and gets kicked out of the studio, until his boyfriend comes by the store at three for nothing more than silently walking behind the counter and letting jeonghan hug him in reply.)

**Author's Note:**

> jeonghan never really wants to cooperate with me and i'm not sure why, but anyway.


End file.
